Charles II of Navarre

Charles II "the Bad" of Navarre (10 October 1332-1 January 1387) was King of Navarre from 6 October 1349 to 1 January 1387, succeeding Joan II and preceding Charles III. Charles was known to be treacherous and ambitious, switching sides several times during the Hundred Years' War with the intent of seizing the Duchy of Burgundy or even the French throne for himself. He very nearly achieved the latter amid the Jacquerie revolt of 1358, but he soon lost the support of the French nobility due to his open attempts at usurping the Dauphin (the future Charles V of France). From the 1366 to 1378, Charles lost all of his Normandy possessions to the French (while the English took Cherbourg), while he also lost many of his Pyreneean lands to Castile. In 1379, Charles was forced to agree to a permanent alliance with France and Castile, ending his ambitious wars. He was accidentally burned to death in 1387 when a maid attempted to use a candle to remove a loose thread on the brandy-impregnated linen sack which Charles had been forced to sleep in due to his sickness.

Early life
Charles d'Evreux was born in Evreux, Normandy, France on 10 October 1332, the son of King Philip III of Navarre and Queen Joan II. His father was the first cousin of King Philip VI of France and his mother was the only daughter of King Louis X of France, and, upon assuming the crown of Navarre in 1349, he inherited lands both in the Pyrenees and in Normandy (Evreux, Mortain, Vexin, and part of the Cotentin Peninsula). Charles spent very little time in Navarre, instead hoping to increase his influence in France with the help of Navarrese soldiers; however, he was unable to wrest the throne from his Valois cousins. In 1352, he captured the English-held town of Port-Sainte-Marie on the Garonne, and he also married Joan of Valois, daughter of King Jean II of France that same year.

Plotting against the King
In January 1354, he had the Constable of France Charles de La Cerda assassinated after quarrelling with him the previous Christmas, angering King Jean II; Charles thus began to work towards an alliance with King Edward III of England. However, King Jean II agreed to grant Charles extensive lands in exchange for his reconciliation with the French crown. In late 1354, Jean invaded Charles' territories, reigniting their rivalry. Charles again changed sides, and Jean was again forced to make peace at Valognes on 10 September 1355. In December 1355, Charles took part in a failed attempt to replace King Jean with the Dauphin, and, on 5 April 1356, King Charles was arrested and imprisoned.

Return to power
On 9 November 1357, he escaped from prison and entered Paris with a large retinue, being received like a monarch. When he heard of the peace between England and France, Charles knew that his position was threatened, so he released all of Paris' prisoners to create anarchy and then returned to Normandy. The Jacquerie uprising in Paris forced the Dauphin to grant Charles additional lands and 1,000 troops, and the knights of northern France recruited Charles to help them suppress the peasant revolt. He massacred the rebels at Mello in 1358 and urged the populace to elect him "Captain of Paris" in a bid for power; this move lost Charles the support of many French nobles. Charles instead recruited several English mercenaries to defend Paris, but anti-English riots in the city resulted in a battle between the English and Parisians which left 600 French peasants dead. Charles stayed outside of the city in Saint-Denis as the revolt petered out, and he once again negotiated with England, offering to recognize Edward III as King of France if Charles was made his vassal in Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, and Brie. In 1359, Charles was forced to come to terms with the Dauphin when Edward III invaded France and attacked Charles' territories in the process.

Loss of Normandy
In 1361, Charles failed to become Duke of Burgundy after the death of his second cousin Duke Philip I of Burgundy. In November, Charles returned to Navarre and made a fresh plot to retake France; a Caroline revolt in Normandy in 1362 failed, and, in 1363, Charles planned to form two armies to campaign in Normandy and central France a year later. In 1364, Edward the Black Prince gave Charles permission to march through Aquitaine, and Charles' plan was set into action. At the 1364 Battle of Cocherel, Charles was defeated by Bertrand du Guesclin, and most of Charles' lands in Normandy were lost by April. That same month, the captive Jean II died in England and the Dauphin became King Charles V of France. In May 1365, at Pamplona, Charles II was forced to make peace with Charles V, keeping his conquests of 1364, except for the Meulan citadel, which was razed to the ground. Charles had failed in his attempt to take either the French throne or Burgundy, and he returned to Navarre empty-handed.

Castilian Civil War
When the Castilian Civil War broke out, large numbers of French, English, Gascon, and Navarrese soldiers became mercenaries in Spain. Charles II allied with Pedro the Cruel of Castile at first, but, in 1365, he switched his support to Pere IV of Aragon. In 1366, he again switched sides by letting Pedro and Edward the Black Prince's army march through Navarre; he switched sides a third time when Henry of Trastamara offered Charles II the town of Logrono in exchange for the closure of the passes. The English thus invaded Navarre from northern Castile, forcing Charles to capitulate and grant the English passage.

Loss of power
In 1369, the war between France and England resumed, and Charles allied with John V of Brittany. In July 1370, Charles visited King Edward III in Westminster, although the negotiations were fruitless. In March 1371, after an English army was destroyed at Pontvallain, Charles II was forced to ally with Charles V instead. In 1372, Charles returned to Navarre and twice failed to have Charles V poisoned. In 1374, Charles' ally John of Gaunt abandoned his designs on the throne of Castile, so he instead agreed to have his eldest son, the future Charles III of Navarre, marry Henry of Trastamara's daughter Eleanor. In 1378, he attempted to gain English support against the Castilians, but his messengers were arrested before they could reach the English, and Charles V seized all of Charles II's domains in Normandy from April to June 1378. The English even seized Charles II's city of Cherbourg for themselves and garrisoned it against the French. From June to July, Castilian armies invaded Navarre, forcing Charles to flee to Gascony. On 31 March 1379, Charles agreed to a perpetual alliance with Castile and France against England, and he surrendered 20 fortresses of southern Navarre (including Tudela) to Castilian garrisons.

A fitting end
Charles II, the treacherous and ambitious Navarrese ruler, was finally forced to abandon his designs on France in 1379, and he retired to Pamplona. By the 1380s, he could no longer make use of his limbs, and, in 1387, he was enclosed to the very neck in a sack at his physician's behest. When a maid was stitching the sack one night, she attempted to use a candle to burn off the remaining end of a thread, but the linen cloth had been impregnated with brandy, causing Charles II to catch on fire. The frightened maid fled, and Charles II famously burned to death, which Jean Froissart ascribed to divine intervention.